Thick Hands

Sound Design by Aoto Hongo https://www.instagram.com/aotohongoo Update!: I'm so beyond thrilled to share that Thick Hands got an Honourable Mention from the Los Angeles Animation Festival 2025!! Update2!: Thick Hands has officially been selected for Anilogue 2026! It's first ever film festival showing! Update 3!: It has also been selected for Animed 2026!! I'm super pleased! Update 4!: We're gonna be shown at MIAF 26! This is my home turf! My second semester studio project! I'm thrilled to be finishing the first year of my masters with this one. It's a bit strange but for those interested here is the spiel behind it, otherwise enjoy :) -------------------------------------- Thick Hands is a surreal-horror character anthology of female performance. It is a response to a comment from a male classmate recommending I "study how women move"- a concept I'd not specifically thought of up until this point, and as a not-very-feminine cis woman, it stuck with me. This performance of gender in animation seemed relevant to my cohort, so using filmed footage of men in various, traditionally feminine capacities (imitation, drag, and acting in female-dominated professions), I used rotoscoping to study the action and recontextualise it with female-presenting characters. The rotoscope was important to pair with the freehand drawing as it can be uncanny and uncomfortable, and editing the footage beforehand lent further into this. The silly body horror, the not quite quiet sound, the tension, all conveys my discomfort around expectations (particularly from a male audience) about performing as a woman, and what default ideas about drawing/animating/directing a girl character might entail. The only actual female performance in this piece is the hands pulling the door open at the end, my own. The title Thick Hands refers to English translations of a small scene from The Odyssey featuring Queen Penelope. As she unlocks the weapons vault which contains what Odysseus will use to slay the suitors and retake their home, her hands are described as 'thick'- a description only used previously for men and warriors. However this is often deemed not the most appropriate for a noble lady, so is changed in English. I'm not really scholarly when it comes to subjects of translation and interpretation, but this idea struck a chord with me that even with one of the oldest recorded stories and female characters, we can't do anything that feels uncomfortable with how the gender of Woman is presented and performed. It's turned into a surprisingly personal piece, so I hope you enjoy my weird girls.